Excelsior Correspondent
KATHUA, Aug 31: Facing worst ever power and water crisis due to the callousness of the authorities at the helm of affairs the people in Kathua district are up in arms against the administration.
The administration has failed to look into the problem said Madan Lal a resident of Hiranagar. He said there is hardly any day left when people of one village or other don’t protest and block the National Highway in protest against the power and water crisis.
He said about 80 power transformers and PHE Sub Stations are defunct in various areas of the district and there is no proper mechanism to repair them on war footing basis to ease the problems of the people. By the time one transformer and sub stations of PHE are repaired in one village, another develops a snag in the other village. This way it is continuous problem and there is no one to look into the same, he added.
The failure of the authorities to find an everlasting solution to the problem has been a cause of concern for the people of Kathua district ion in general and those living in Kandi belt in particular, said Sham Singh a resident of Billawar. He said the issue was taken up with the authorities many times through various representative bodies but to no avail. The callousness of the Government towards the problem has generated a lot of public resentment and people are up in arms against the district administration in general and PDD and PHE authorities in particular.
He said there is only one workshop for repairing of power transformers in the entire Kathua district at Hatli Morh and it can’t cater to the increasing load. Moreover there is no workshop for repairing the PHE motors in the district and the Department gets them repaired through private agencies. This takes a lot of time like completion of formalities and tendering process, he added.
He said a proposal was given to previous Government by Naresh Sharma senior Congress leader that the three workshops each of PHE and PDD besides the Hatli Morh workshop be established to cater to the needs of the people so that much time is not lost in repairing the defunct transformers and motors but to no avail.
He said the Government should take an immediate decision in this regard to ease the problems of the people.
The situation is in no way better in the adjoining Samba district also as people in many areas of district day in and day out come to streets protesting against water and power scarcity.
Today the villagers of Ghadwal near Vijaypur in Samba district blocked the Vijaypur-Ramgarh road for about half an hour as the local transformer had developed a snag five days back and authorities had failed to repair the same till date. This forced the villagers to come to streets and block the road. However the road blockade was later lifted on the assurance of DySP and SDM Vijaypur. They rushed to the spot and assured the people that the transformer will be replaced by the evening.
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